LAKESHORE DRIVE?

On most of the lakes and even some coastal areas of the Gulf, we have come across the most popular name for streets: Lakeshore Drive.

Lakeshore Drive usually means folks with lots of money that will have fancy homes and some being gated.  The streets are probably in better shape than the main streets in the town. 

Whenever we come across Lakeshore Drives we are always amazed by those that live in that area and then say to ourselves “not in our lifetime will we ever own such a home”.

Now I can honestly say we have come across a Lakeshore Drive that we actually could afford to live on-if we ever choose too to settle down….

This Lakeshore Drive is situated right along the western side of El Vado Lake in NM.  And I’m pretty sure that property value will never be extremely expensive here nor will taxes be high.  Not much money is spent on road improvements.

 

It’s almost a given that if you plan to live on this Lakeshore Drive, you will need a 4X4 vehicle and high clearance would be wise.  Only due to the fact that it was dry when we took our little tracker on this little tour that we didn’t need to put it in 4X4 ourselves.  But if it had been wet or even snow-we would not have gotten through.  some of the ruts I had to dodge and there were one or two hairpins that we prayed another vehicle was not flying around the corner.  We ran into one jeep at the beginning of this little adventure.

Lakeshore drive is 16 miles along the lake with homes and even campers tucked in where one would never imagine they could get in-but they do.  Some areas of the road is one lane only!

In order to access this road, there is a width limit across the El Vado Dam and is only 10-feet.  There is a warning sign that if you touch the barriers on either side-you must back up! 

         We have never come across a dam like this before.  Our teeth were jarred by the time we crossed over and our nerves rattled!

If you really like seclusion and privacy-then this would defiantly be the place to go.  There is however one minor problem to owning property in this section of Lakeshore Drive.  You can have septic tanks put in-but there is no water table for drilling your own well.  You have to haul water in from other areas.  The fish hatchery in Los Ojos every Tuesday allows those folks to come down and get free water.   A few will “sneak” into the park and fill water that way.

^{Homes that are tucked in along Lakeshore Drive.}

Now on the North end of El Vado Lake is a much more developed community that does have the fancier homes with sewer and water on the property and yes, private fences, however the road isn’t paved, but hard pack gravel and easy to get around anytime of the year.

After talking with the park ranger of El Vado Lake it amazes him on how many big RV’s will try to take this road to a few of their primitive campsites on the west side of the lake. When they finally get to where ever  they maybe trying to go, their RV’s usually have damage done one way or the other. It’s NOT a road for RV’s-unless it’s high clearance and made for that kind of roughness.

Lakeshore Drive does eventually end and become Hwy 95 to Herron Lake; which is adjacent to El Vado Lake.